our house is on fire

When Chelsea and I came home from work earlier this week, we saw the channel 2 news vans in our apartment's parking lot. Last time this happend, it was becuase one of our neighbors (a friendly asian gentleman) had strangled his wife to death in a domestic dispute the night before. So naturally, we were curious to see what had happened this time. As we rounded the corner to our parking space, we saw what the fuss was all about:The building across from ours was completely burned on one end. The building across from ours burned down when we lived at the beloved J347 in Anchorage. Is it just the shady places I live, or do apartments burn down on a routine basis? Or maybe some dyslexic, sinister mastermind is intent on burning my house down, but can't get the unit number right. Just to be safe, I'm going to move into brick house next time.

Fresh socks and bumper stickers

We made a quick jaunt to Oregon over the weekend. We took a leisurely afternoon hike to Blue Lake with Denver's parents, ate piles of pancakes, drank lots of coffee and tea with my parents, gathered eggs with Kayce and Garret, successfully leased the house for another year, and planned a winter ski trip with Jocelyn. Not all weekends can be perfect however and sadly enough the duffel that we had our clothes in was somehow left sitting in the middle of our apartment floor. Meaning we spent the weekend only in the clothes we were wearing when we left Reno and whatever articles of clothing we could nab from our unsuspecting relatives. We're still a little dumfounded that we could actually step over the duffel to get out the door and still leave it behind.

Here is Denver in his father's fleece dreaming of all the freshly laundered socks he had placed in the duffel the night before.

On an unrelated topic, regarding natural childbirth, I saw a bumper sticker one time that read "Midwives help people out."

The Great Reno Balloon Race

The main event for the weekend was the title attraction, the Great Reno Balloon Race. The gist of it is that about a hundred eccentric old guys get in wicker baskets early in the morning, and float around for a while under big, colorful hot air balloons. The "race" part consists of hoping your balloon floats over one of several large X's painted on the grass in several football fields around the city, at which point you would toss out a beanbag that has your number on it. The Great Reno Balloon Beanbag Toss just didn't sound exciting enough last year, hence the new moniker no doubt aimed at attracting the adrenalin set.

The Dawn Patrol

Proffesor Muldoon's Balloon getting launched

Giant multicolored mushrooms

the blog is back.

Well it's been over two years since I taught you all the proper way to grow facial hair. And now we - Chelsea and myself - have decided to reinstate the online publication of our most secret thoughts.
So here is the inaugural post of a new era. It is going to be a quick recap of the last two years of adventures and life.
As you well know, we moved from Alaska in June 2008, and went back to Chelsea's hometown of Chiloquin, OR. We bought a house, and quit blogging. We skied Crater Lake in the winter, and climbed Smith Rocks in the summer, and tried, more or less unsuccessfully, to find a good place to mountain bike.
Then, in February 2010, we moved again. This time we landed in the northern foothills of the Eastern Sierra, Reno, NV. I think I like it here. Reno is a really weird city, but it has a Whole Foods, so Chelsea is happy, and we have no money. We took a Trad climbing class with Alpine Ascents International, and that opened up a whole new world of possibilities to us. (If this is to deep and private for anyone, feel free to take a break, get some coffee, whatever). We kicked off the climbing season with a trip to Joshua Tree with Dani and Adam to use our new skills. We have had the campingest summer yet, spending at least two nights a week in sleeping bags since May 22, climbing almost every weekend. It was a good summer.
Ok, that brings us up to the present, hopefully this blogging streak will last longer than my ill-fated how-to phase.

P.S. If you want to read something more intriguing than this, Chelsea is going to author posts about home decorating, nutritious food, natural childbirth, and other topics of more general interest.

how to do anything

(2) Grow A Mustache

I consulted my future brother in law, who has been seen sporting the mustache on more than one occasion, to see how best to go about growing your own. He says "Don't shave at all for a few weeks. A 'guy's only' camping trip is ideal, but a camping trip on which you plan on proposing to your one and only will do in a pinch. You must allow the 'stache to freely extend beyond the corners of your mouth. There is a point when the hairs will start to interfere with food and drink, you will have to deal with that, use a straw or something. Once it is long enough for your purpose, carefully shave off extraneous hair until you are left with a luxurious mouth mane." He concludes: "Admittedly, most women don't like it. But those that do really do."

how to do anything

Just moments before our legions of loyal fans stop visiting our very boring, rarely updated blog entirely, I thought I would attempt a revival by dispensing bits of home-spun wisdom and dangerous advice in a couple of how-to columns. Think of it as a graduate course in adventure, fitness, gear, sex, sports and anything else you wish you were good at. It’s a big scary world - and you need to be prepared.

(1) Tune your derailleur

It looks hairy: springs, cables, chains, gears, grease – who wants to mess with that? But your friendly guide has brought along the Big Blue Book of Bicycle Repair, and the majority of your shifting issues (clacking, rough shifts, jumping chains) can be fixed fast, even by a theology major.

Step 1: You first need to determine if you need to tighten or loosen the cable. Shift up until your chain is on the smallest cog in the rear. Now downshift one gear. If the chain doesn’t climb right up onto the next gear, you need to increase tension. If it overshifts, you need to reduce it.*

Step 2: Find the barrel adjuster. This is where the cable enters the derailleur (most) or possibly on the handle bars.

Step 3: To increase tension, turn the barrel adjuster counterclockwise. To reduce tension, do the opposite. The adjuster will click, turn it one or two clicks an recheck the shifting.

*This is true for most derailleurs. Some, known as “low normal” work in the opposite direction, but the principle is the same. If cable tension pulls the chain away from the wheel, you have a low normal. If you have a LN, start on the largest cog and reverse the process.

My Sister

I'm here in Kansas City with my sister. She amazes me how incredibly on-top of everything she is... for just twenty years old! I remember where I was at at twenty. Anyway... just wanted to say hi to all you fellow bloggers out there. Love you all!